I typically like short story collections, though this one did not resonate with me. I found the point of view overtly male, and too prose-heavy for the short fiction form. I was intrigued by the description of the pieces included, though the execution was not what I anticipated or hoped. Took me as long to get through this 200 page collection as it would a book twice the length.

Eh... I just couldn’t get into this one. Others may like it; it just couldn’t hold my attention.

I would like to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

"Instructions for a Funeral" is the fifth collection of stories by David Means. After reading his last collection, "The Spot", and his only novel, "Hystopia", I was really looking forward to delving into these stories. Unfortunately it was a tough journey. Most of the things I really liked about his works that I previously read, i.e. the weirdness, is all buy gone in these stories. Instead we are given a collection of stories that are deep in contemplation and idea but shallow in action and even character in most cases. Even though the collection is slightly over 200 pages, it felt so long because the reading is slow. The sentences are long, and the paragraphs are longer, most of them being so knotted that we have to spend a great deal of time either trying to untie them and figure out what Means is trying to convey or just keep on moving. These situations ran about 50/50 for me. There are many stories I did not care about enough to work hard to figure out the nuances. Many of the stories run into the same situation and they break down like this:

1. Two men are talking. No more than two. Some are friends. Some are strangers. Some are friends by circumstance. Most are married, but the wives have no part of these stories, unless they are lost due to some action the man now regrets and is the reason for the discussion with the other man.

2. Many of these men while listening are looking at nature, sometimes the trees but most of the time the river. Not only are they looking at it, but they are distracted by it, as if they cannot focus on anything because their surrounding are too magnificent to really keep the narrative.

3. Many of the narrators of the overall story is not the talker in these two men and the stories are told in retrospect, with a little bit of a hint of the future. We come to understand these are memories most of the time, but there is not much development besides the narrator saying that it is a memory.

4. Many do not have conclusion of action as much as conclusion of thought.

Some of these stories vary a little but not too much. I do not know if this is Means's way of working through a problem in his mind, worrying the same rock until it is smooth, but I hope that his next collection has a bit more variety and interesting stories than this one. I will continue to read him, and he is one of America's best writers, but this is not a great collection to illustrate this.

I received an ARC of this collection through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

a Story that was nothing like I expected. diving into family, parenthood, drugs and addiction. I was a little thrown by the development. The serial killer nurse and the police just didn't draw me in.

I could not get myself to finish this book. I tried to push through it in the hopes that I would be able to piece the collection of essays together, maybe find one that really stuck out to me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. First off, I found myself having to read the introduction pages over and over again. The writing is much too run-on and messy for my liking.

The author shoves too much into one sentence to make it feel like there is any cohesive outcome. It was an unorganized collection of essays in my opinion.

I couldn't finish this book. There was nothing about the story or the characters that appealed to me.

An inconsistent collection of short stories that showed off the author’s range but ultimately failed to hold my interest.

Looking back on all you accomplished in your life you may have regrets and wisdom but in this book there are several stories conveyed to describe key momentts, including instruction for his funeral. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would given the author pedigree but it was very quick pace and well written

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of Instructions For a Funeral.

I did like some of the stories more than others, however it really just wasn’t my type book. I just couldn’t stay with it. I tried many times, again, I don’t think it was bad by any means, just not my type of reading. The extremely long sentences just bothered me after while. Perhaps the author wanted it to be as if it was their stream of consciousness/thoughts? Whatever the reason, it just wasn’t for me. I do appreciate the chance to read it though, thank you for that.

Instructions for a Funeral is a collection of short stories. The topics include parenting, loss, infidelity, and finding love. I liked some stories more than others. One of my favorites describes a fist fight between two guys, and you get flashbacks of both characters as the fight continues, learning more of their backstory and what lead them to this moment. The namesake story is just as described - a man giving very detailed instructions for his eventual funeral, including making speculations about who killed him if it was not from natural causes. Pretty entertaining 😏
This book is being published on March 5th, 2019. Thank you to @netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for a review. #netgalley #bookreview #instructionsforafuneral

I gave this several tries, but as with the author's previous work, was unable to penetrate it. It just wasn't for me.

I’ve never read a book where the length of the sentences and paragraphs are inversely proportional to the length of the story. I’m not sure if the author is writing this as stream of consciousness or just does not know what a period is. Beautiful, descriptive writing, but please get to the point already is what I kept saying to myself. Fortunately, these are short stories, so each one did come to an end rather quickly. The writing is not particularly difficult and I pretty much slogged through all the stories. They were a little too cerebral, meandering and self-reflecting for my taste. Admittedly, I do not read many short story collections. This collection may make me read even fewer.

Though there were a couple of decent stories within the covers of this book, the overall book is a nightmare for to read. It is full of run-on sentences and huge paragraphs. The story line just drones on and on to the point where I actually put the book down numerous times because I could not keep my attention focused on the page. It was a nightmare to read not to mention remain objective. I am not one to give up on a book regardless of the layout of the page or the content of the story. So I persevered through it. As I stated earlier, there were a few good stories in there worth reading. If you have the time and patience, you will not be disappointed.

This collection of short stories is heartwarming, but it was quite a difficult read. The author's writing style is not one for which I am a regular reader, therefore our connection (between author and reader) was not where I am typically enthusiastic.

This book and I did not connect on any level. I was “lost in the translation” with the stream of consciousness writing style, and the run on sentences. I could not become invested. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I think I knew everything I needed to know about the novel and the author's writing style when I saw the dedication page: "To Jonathan Franzen." I made it a few pages and mentally checked out. There was no break in the sentences; everything seemed to bleed into each other.

Where do I even start with this one? All that praise, all the accolades…and yet the book’s barely readable. There are too many puns one can make in relation to the title, suffice it to say Means certainly doesn’t put fun in the funeral. There are meant to be slice of life stories, blue collar to no collar, very realistic sort of thing, low on plot and heavy on details. Yes, you get the idea…but the execution is soporific at best. Rambling protracted sentences, paragraph free, more often than not dialogue free, stream of consciousness tedium. This is actually exactly the sort of thing literary prizes drool over, Means even managed a Man Booker nomination ones, albeit long listed, but as far as sheer reading enjoyment goes there’s none here to be found. Longwinded dreary monotony posing as literature. If read aloud this would produce limp finger snaps instead of a rousing applause. Then again this is probably exactly the sort of thing some readers go crazy for and it just didn’t work for me. Who knows. I can definitely understand what the author was going for, the grace of ordinary an all that, but there are different and considerably superior , not to mention infinitely more readable, ways of getting there. I started this, got fifth or so of the way in and had to put it down, picked it back up two days later determined to finish, completist like, and at no time were there any redeeming qualities discovered for this reading experience. The only good thing about it was its brevity, although it still manages to read long due to dense text and lack of any kind of excitement or reader engagement or pleasure. My only instructions for this book would be avoid at all costs. Thanks Netgalley.

Instructions for a funeral is a collection of short stories by David Means. While the stories were heartfelt and poignant, the writing itself was a little out of character for means. Or at east it seemed so for me. It has been awhile since I have read his work. Certainly for me it’s a 4 out of 5

David Mean's short story collection, Instructions for a Funeral, contains provocative and heart-wrenching stories about fatherhood, relationships, addiction, and regret. The title story, "Instructions for a Funeral" finds William Kenner delineating his last wishes to his lawyer and in so doing relating a betrayal by a friend and an encounter with organized crime. In "Terminal Artist," the narrator learns that a friend he thought had died from complications from surgery during cancer treatment might have instead been the victim of an "angel of mercy." After challenging a rich town boy to a fight for saying he hated Okies, ranch hand Frankie catches the eye of Sarah Breeland who saw in him a complicated kindness.

Two sets of stories are interconnected; the rest stand alone. However, the stories share common themes, one being a sense of fate, destiny, or premonition and how memory can retroactively give certain events or moments significance. For example, one character considers the time immediately before learning his wife had an affair: "On the penultimate day, as I now think of it, the point through which the rest of my life with Sharon would seem to bow, or, rather, bend, so that everything that transpired after that afternoon seemed to lead to the day when Sharon confessed to me, admitted that, yes, she had been seeing X, but that she had broken it off with him, let go of him, was how she put it." Forgiveness also appeared in multiple stories as did the creation of stories. Ultimately, all the stories seemed to have thematic cohesion with the exception of El Morro which didn't fit as well in the collection.

Overall, I liked the writing style, but I did find some devices the author used to be distracting at best, at worst, irritating. In multiple stories, the phrase "I thought, I think" or a close variation is used a total of ten times. Although it points to the fallibility of memory and furthers the theme, the sheer volume of the phrase made it lose meaning. Another frequent device was a parenthetical comment followed by an exclamation point (e.g., "I still despise that phrase!" or "Yes, fucking navels!") which I found off-putting. Finally, the sentences and the paragraphs were unduly long. I found myself frequently rereading because I'd get lost in the prose. As I progressed through the book, I got more accustomed to the style, but it did make for a challenging reading experience.

I wasn't sure if we were to assume the same person narrated all the stories, but in any case, in many stories, the narrator was a writer and meditated on the art of writing (with two stories explicitly about writing). In "Terminal Artist," for example, the narrator reflects, "I’d never be able to use her death in a story. I’d have to find some other way, I thought." Several times, this idea of using the events in the narrative in a story arises. On the one hand, it is interesting to think of how stories are constructed from real-life events and then are manipulated and reformed by the author, but the idea came up so often, it felt overdone and lost effectiveness.

That said, I enjoyed the collection and came away feeling touched. Ultimately, it was through the stories and the retelling that the events gained meaning or, as Means describes it, provides a state of "deeper grace."

I had trouble getting into this... maybe others will like it but just wasn't my style. He appears to be a good writer so maybe just the story itself.